Always and Forever
by LittleLea05
Summary: Edward is a paramedic with a beautiful wife and a baby on the way: till one fateful day when he goes on a call that drastically alters his life and his family. O/S written for the Kill a Cullen Contest. AH/AU


**Title:Always and Forever**

**Penname(s):LittleLea05**

**Rating:M**

**Disclaimer: owns the characters I own this fuckery.**

**Summary: Title:** **Edward is a paramedic with a beautiful wife and a baby on the way: till one fateful day when he goes on a call that drastically alters his life and his family. O/S written for the Kill a Cullen Contest. AH/AU**

**Submitted for the 'To Kill a Cullen' Contest**

**Please check out the other entries here :**

**http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/community/To_Kill_a_Cullen_Contest_Community/76759/**

**A/N: I was told to put a tissue warning so yeah grab a box and maybe some chocolate too.**

**Enjoy!!!**

EPOV

I never thought I would meet my soul mate when I was seventeen years old, but fate has a funny way of bringing people together. I remember it like it was yesterday.

~*~*~

_I was sitting on the hood of my car when I saw that monstrosity she calls a truck pull into the Forks High School parking lot. I scoffed as she pulled up right next to Mike Newton and his miscreants also known as Tyler Crowley, Lauren Mallory and Jessica Stanley. Of course Mike took notice immediately. Anyways while she was getting out of her truck her backpack opened and all the contents spilled onto the asphalt. Mike and the pests he calls friends all started laughing and pointing._

_Alice my younger sister pushed her way though and knelt down to help the new girl pick up her things while everyone stood around laughing. I decided that it wasn't my place to intervene and gathered my things for my first class of the day, History with Mr. Thompson._

_Everything went by smoothly until lunch when I noticed the new girl sitting alone at a table in the corner with ear buds in and a book in hand; her head nodding to the rhythm coming from her iPod. I smiled when I noticed her ratty old chucks and the Beatles t-shirt she was wearing. My kinda girl. I would like to say it was love at first sight, but seriously, who believes in that shit anyways?_

_Alice crept up behind me and noticed me starring at the new girl. "Her name is Bella. She is a pretty cool chick. I think you would like her. Wanna go see if she wants to eat lunch with us?"_

_Ugh stupid nosy sister and her mischievous ways. "Um no I think I am going to spend lunch in the music room anyways. I've just had a stroke of inspiration all of a sudden."_

_Alice got this shit eating grin on her face and just waved me away._

_~*~*~_

_I sat in the music room with a piece of paper, a pencil and my guitar in hand. Every time I wrote a few notes down just as many would be scribbled out. I finally decided to give up and head to Biology a little early._

_I sat down at the lab table I was assigned to and took out my book. Oh fun the phases of Mitosis. This is going to be a cake-walk. The bell finally rang and people started filtering into the classroom. I noticed out of the corner of my eye the familiar head of mahogany colored hair and shifted my body towards the front where new girl was talking with Mr. Banner._

_I actually took a minute while I wasn't under the watchful gaze of my sister and looked the girl, Bella, over. She had a heart shaped face and freckles on her nose. Yes I was looking that closely. I noticed a birthmark right under her left ear and her lips were full and luscious. Then I noticed that her gaze landed on me and the brightest shade of crimson filled her cheeks. Mr. Banner was giving her instructions and what I was sure was the class syllabus and the textbook. He pointed over towards me and I dropped my gaze back down to my book._

_I was brought back to reality when I heard the stool next to me slide across the linoleum floor and she sat next to me. She kept her head down and opened her book to the page listed on the whiteboard at the front of the class. She didn't speak so I thought I would be the first to initiate contact._

"_Hello."_

_She turned to me and the same bright crimson grazed her cheeks again. "Hi." She replied with the softest most soothing voice I have ever heard. God, Emmett would totally kick me in the sac if he heard the thoughts in my head right now._

"_I'm Edward, so you're new around here huh?" Wow I do sound like an idiot. Hello, just call me Captain Obvious._

"_Bella, I just moved here from Phoenix. It's pretty different but I like it." She replied with a smile._

"_Yeah I bet, you move from the hottest place in the US to the most wet and rainy place. Um anyways I just wanted to welcome you." I started getting fidgety and almost knocked over the microscope, but caught it before it could crash to the floor._

_We spent the rest of the class in silence and before Mr. Banner excused us to our last classes of the day he said the lab from today had to be finished by the end of the week. Which meant Bella and I would spend even more time together. Bella looked to me and said, "So um…ugh for this lab thing, how do you want to do it? I mean we both probably have totally different answers or whatever. Um do you mind if we work on it after school or something. I mean if you're not busy or anything." Oh man now I had the girl rambling. Am I really that intimidating? _

"_After school will be fine. I have to wait for my sister to get out of cheerleading practice though. Is that cool? We can meet at the library or something if you want?" _

_That's how it all started from a simple homework assignment in Biology. _

_~*~*~_

Bella and I have been together six years this September. Three of which we have been married for. After graduating high school we decided that we would stay close to Forks for college because all our family was in the vicinity and Bella just couldn't part with her parents and her little brother Peter. So the University of Seattle it was. I was okay with that.

We ended up finding a nice two bedroom apartment in downtown Seattle and taking on a full load of coursework on top of full-time jobs to keep up with the bills. I asked Bella to marry me near the end of our sophomore year of college and we got married our junior year. Now we are both two years into working on our bachelors, her in European Literature and I was working on my paramedic license.

~*~*~Present day~*~*~

It was another rainy day in Seattle. The wind was a little crazy and the rain was coming down in sheets. So much that you could hardly see a few feet in front of you. My partner Seth and I were out in the rig cruising around until we got a call. Maybe twenty minutes into our joyride dispatch alerts all rigs near the freeway to be called out due to a multiple car pile-up. I hit the sirens and lights and sped up going code 3 down the Freeway. We got to the accident site five minutes later and I could already tell it was going to be a hell of a day. I noticed that there were about five ambulances. We were going to need a lot more than that.

I looked down the freeway and noticed a familiar car. Alice's car. Alice was supposed to be taking Bella shopping today. It was trapped between a Ford pick-up and a tree. The car was so smashed up I only hoped that its inhabitants were still alive. My heart rate picked up and I started running towards the little Honda Civic with my medical bag and Seth running behind me. I get to the car; Alice pinned by the airbag that deployed and has yet to deflate. She looks pretty banged up. I look over to the passenger seat and my breathing halts. There in the passenger seat is my wife, eight months pregnant with a piece of shrapnel protruding from her abdomen and a huge gaping head wound. She also happened to be on the side that was wrapped around the tree.

I tried the doors but they wouldn't budge. Thank god the truck was at the rear of the car or Alice and Bella would have both been dead. I tapped on the glass trying to rouse Alice from unconsciousness. When I couldn't wake her I started to panic. The back window had been blown out from the impact so I crawled in because I was smaller than Seth. I first assessed Bella. She was breathing, slow and steady breaths. I applied gauze to her head wound and stabilized the shrapnel piece so it didn't move and cause more damage. When I was sure Bella was as stable as I could get her in my range of space, I moved to Alice and applied a neck brace and checked her vitals. Her pulse was strong and steady. She awoke suddenly.

"Edward? What happened? Are Bella and the baby okay. Ugh…I can't move, get me out of here." She started hyperventilating.

"Shhh Ali it's going to be okay but I need you not to wiggle around. If you have a back or neck injury that could make it worse. So calm down and take some deep breaths. I am going to deflate the airbag now so you will be able to breathe better." I took out my trusty pocket knife and sliced a hole into the driver's side airbag. Alice winced but said nothing. I then hit the unlock button and the doors unlocked. Seth attended to Alice while I was still trying to wake Bella up enough to hear her voice. I caress her cheek and she moves slightly. Her eyelids flutter and she smiles.

"Edward, is it bad?" She says so quietly I could hardly hear her.

"Yeah baby, it's pretty bad. Don't panic but you were in a multiple car pile-up. You have a severe head wound and there is a piece of shrapnel protruding from your abdomen. Can you feel pain anywhere else?" I ask in a soothing voice.

Her eyes glance down to her stomach and she starts hyperventilating. "The baby" is all she says before I notice blood coming from between her legs and she lets out a blood curdling scream.

"Ahh! Edward something is wrong." She says in a shaky panicked voice before her eyes roll up into the back of her head and she loses consciousness. I shake her a smidgen but she is unresponsive. I call for a gurney and someone who can get this door off. I am not losing my whole family today. Not if I can help it.

In a span of twenty minutes, a tow truck removes the car from around the tree, two burly men with the Jaws of Life extract the door for me, then I get her on the gurney and to the hospital before she bleeds out. During the ambulance ride Bella is going in and out of consciousness. Her heart rate is scarce and the baby's is weak but still existent. Ten minutes later we are pulling up to the hospital.

Carlisle is already waiting outside at the front entrance. I slam the ambulance doors open and Seth is helping me wheel Bella into the hospital and the closest available trauma room. Carlisle is hot on my heels as I am spouting off all that is wrong with her. Then behind us Alice is wheeled in by Jane and Felix. She is stable but is suffering from multiple broken ribs and possible internal bleeding, not to mention a possible spinal injury.

Carlisle, being Bella's OB/GYN, does an ultrasound to see if the baby has been impaled with shrapnel too. He has come to the conclusion that it has in fact impaled our daughter, through the left side of her chest, which in turn made the baby descend towards the birth canal early causing Bella's water to break along with excess blood I saw earlier.

Bella wakes up with a start and is trying to wriggle her way off the backboard we still have her strapped to. Carlisle is trying to calm her without using a sedative. Bella finally makes eye contact with me and calms. She reaches for my hand and I willingly walk over to her.

"Hey baby, glad to see your beautiful brown eyes again. Don't scare me like that again. Bella, Carlisle needs to do an emergency c-section so he can fix our little girl and you also need surgery. Everything is going to be okay. I can't lose you. You are my life." Unshed tears are prickling my eyes.

"Edward, I'm scared. What if she doesn't make it? What if I don't make it?" Bella's voice was hoarse.

"Hey, hey don't talk like that. Carlisle is one of the best doctor's around and he will fix you both up. Don't be afraid. I love you, Bella. Always." I plead as they are wheeling her out to surgery.

"I love you too, Edward. Forever." Bella cries.

~*~*~*~Five hours Later~*~*~*~

Waiting sucks.

I have not heard a word of my wife or my daughter or even my sister's status in nearly five hours. _What is going on? I should have heard something by now. I have to know their fate._ I was running myself into the ground. Pacing with my hand running wildly through my hair. As I was about to march myself up to surgery Jasper comes into the waiting room, looking shell-shocked.

"Hey have you heard anything? It's been five hours already. They have to tell us something." I ranted.

"As far as I know Bella is still in surgery and Alice just got out. She is in recovery and will be moved to a private room as soon as she wakes. She had massive internal injuries and she suffered a spinal cord injury to her Thoracic region. She is paralyzed from the waist down Edward. My wife won't ever walk again. She is going to be destroyed when she finds out. What am I going to do?" He started sobbing and I'm pretty sure it was some man-law that when another man is crying you just turn the other cheek and act as nothing was wrong but fuck that. This man was my brother-in-law-to-be. So I grabbed him into a hug and wept with him. What was once a normal day was now the worst day imaginable in the Cullen family's world.

Jasper and Alice were supposed to be wed in just a few short months and now Alice couldn't even walk herself down the aisle. I couldn't even fathom how Alice was going to take the news. It definitely wasn't going to be easy. I was drawn back to reality when I saw scrub pants and a pair of recognizable running shoes walking towards me. I looked up into the sad worn out eyes of my father.

His hand came up to remove his ty-dyed scrub cap and then he looked at me. I could tell by his stance that something wasn't right. He took a few slow, deep breaths before speaking. This was it. My family's fate lied in the hands of my father.

"Edward," he sounded reserved. "I'm sorry but we couldn't save the baby. There was just too much damage already and there was nothing much more we could do and Bella is in the ICU. She went into shock during the surgery and her heart stopped. We revived her, but there were a lot of internal injuries. We tried to fix all we could see; also with removing the shrapnel we noticed that it punctured the liver and did some major damage to her intestines, but we got it out without it splintering." My father paused for a moment gathering himself. "Edward, she is in pretty bad shape. There was just too much damage; I doubt she will live through the night. You should go be with her before she passes."

I just looked up at him with tears streaming down my face. "How? How could this happen? What did I do to deserve this? What did Bella do to deserve this fate?" I just couldn't imagine my world without her in it. I was angry. Angry at God for taking away everything that was important to me. Angry at Carlisle for not doing enough to save our daughter. Angry at myself for even leaving the house this morning. I was just angry, but once I saw Bella in that hospital bed all broken, I caved and sputtered out a prayer to God to save her. To save the one thing in my life that means something. I stepped over her battered and broken body and pressed a chaste kiss to her chapped lips and then again on her clammy forehead. I grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"Bella, you can't leave me. I won't be able to live without you. It would be too hard." I took a few moments to gather my wits and then started reminiscing about earlier years when we first started dating.

"Do you remember the time when Emmett, Alice, you and I all went on a double date in Port Angeles. That had to have been so awkward for Em and Alice. They barely liked each other as it was. I'm glad they both found their soul mate though. Jasper is great and Rose well, let's just say she has her moments of being one cold-hearted bitch but she grows on you." I chuckled but it felt wrong because Bella wasn't responding. She wasn't slapping me upside the head for calling Rose a bitch and she wasn't reminiscing with me.

I heard a soft rap on the door and Charlie and Renee stuck their heads in. Renee shoved passed Charlie and barreled into me. Sobbing uncontrollably. "Oh E-edward, this can't be real. Tell me this is just a d-dream." She hiccoughed.

I wrapped my arms around her and replied with an emotionless tone."I wish it were Nee I wish it were."

Charlie came up behind me and gave me a manly shoulder squeeze before going to Bella and running his hand over her matted hair. His cheeks were wet and I could see his bottom lip quivering. "Oh God, Why? Why are you taking my little girl from me? This isn't fair. She never got to live."

Just then Bella's eyes fluttered open. "Daddy?"

"Shh baby girl, don't speak." Charlie then turned to me and Renee and said "I'm going to go grab a doctor really quick."

I took residence at Bella's side and smoothed her hair from her face. I chose then to tell her about little Reneesme because I wouldn't get the time to do it later. For there wouldn't be a later.

Telling my wife we lost our child was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Everything from then on was a blur. People came in to visit and pay their respects. They didn't want to say goodbye though because that would make this real.

A few hours later I was lying on the hospital bed with Bella when she whispered. "Edward?"

"Yeah baby? What is it?"

"I'm tired...I...I…love you Edward. Forever. Remember that." Her eyes started to droop.

"No Bella, Please stay with me a little longer." I kissed her forehead and she sported a lazy smile.

"I can't hold on any longer. I've done my living, now it's time to go."

I sobbed and cradled her head to my chest. "I-I love you too Bella. With all my heart. Always." I pressed a kiss to her lips which had already taken their last breath.

The machine flat-lined and my soul died that second, along with her. I laid there for a good half hour before Jasper and Carlisle came to extract me from the room. I couldn't handle it. I just sat in the hospital lobby staring out the window into the rain.

~*~*~ A Week Later~*~*~

I stood there as the reverend spouted off words of God and whatnot. Honestly I lost all sense of fate and everything else the moment I lost Bella. Nothing felt right anymore. Food didn't taste good. I couldn't sleep.

Once everyone had said their piece, she was laid to rest right alongside our daughter. After everyone had started to disperse, they headed to my parents' house for food and whatnot. I stayed there next to the headstone that bore the names of my wife and the daughter I never got to know. I lay a single white lily atop the mound of soil, and bowed my head to kiss the marble headstone.

"I love you, Always. I will see you soon."

I took out the bottle of Jack Daniels I had been nursing all days along with a .38 special revolver. I took a swig of whiskey, spun the cylinder and held the barrel to my temple. I tried to squeeze the trigger but all that was running through my head was the what if's. _What if I shot myself and survived somehow? What if I killed myself but wound up going to Hell for doing so? What if I never pull the trigger?_

I squeezed the trigger anyways.

Click.

I tried again.

Click.

Maybe this was my sign. Maybe I was supposed to go on living. Maybe things would get better. Not any time soon but eventually I would move on.

I hung my head in shame for trying to take my own life and sobbed 'til I couldn't produce tears anymore. I got a second chance at life and they didn't. I got up and dusted myself off. Caressed the headstone one last time and walked away.

The wind swept through my hair and I knew it was Bella telling me she loved me "Forever".

That could have been the whiskey talking but a smile graced my face anyways as I made my way to my car to call a cab. No drunk driving for me today.

**A/N:** Dude this was tough to write…even I was bawling writing it but anyways thanks to all the girls I WC'ed with, without them I wouldn't have gotten it done. Reviews are love so if you're feeling generous please leave one…no pressure though…good luck to all other girl who enter. They are all amazing so far :)


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